Does the soul exist

And here I am wishing to tackle a different subject

The existence of the soul has always intrigued me.

I am sure that if we ask anyone in the street whether he or she believe in the soul, everyone will answer positively.

Why?

Because everyone lived with that idea since day one. Most everyone has a faith. And each one seems to hold to it and the soul is part of it. So why bother thinking otherwise?

I am tempted to raise a word from Voltaire's Candide that is so close to my thought

''Do we only know if we have a soulà

Do we know whether animals whose blood makes life, like it makes ours, who have like us wills, appetites, passions, ideas, memory, industry?

Do you know if these, just like us, incomprehensible beings, have a soul as we pretend to have one?

I had believed until today, that there is in nature, an active force of which we hold the gift of life in all our body, to walk with our legs, to take with our hands, to see with our eyes, to hear with our ears, to smell with our nerves, to think with our head and that all this was what we call soul. A vague word which deeply signifies the unknown principle of our faculties.''

But does one wonder what the soul is like? I am sure no one even thinks about it.

Funny, if I were to replace the soul by the star, it will make more sense to me. The billions of stars in the sky could all represent a being here on earth. We see the stars and we see the beings, but we do not see the soul.

Some stars are more shiny than others and so are people, but sadly we are not all equal, even if we are told at birth that all men are born equal, I will be tempted to disagree.

A baby born today in the jungles of Africa cannot be the equal of one born in Beverly Hills. So there goes equality. You can ask which of these two has a better soul since you believe that both have a soul.

And we can be more specific in trying to find out what is the role of the soulà If each part of our body has a function and if the soul is part of our body, then what is its function?

Well the easy answer will be that the soul has nothing physical like our fingers or our brain. It is totally spiritual, meaning it belongs in our mind. Eventually, I can ask the same question about our mind, but that will be another story.

In a way, mind, soul and spirit can all be the same thing so intertwined they are. And we even sometimes use them in our speech not realizing there may be a difference

And the body on all this? And yet, it is Leonardo da Vinci who said that the body is the work of the soul, that the soul forms itself its envelope, it hammers it inside out like the goldsmith to produce his reliefs.

And what happens when the body dies, does the soul die with ité

I believe it is the million dollar question, while I would think that believers will pretext that the soul never dies, that it goes back to heavens where it came from. Pretty nice, right? And it was Epicurus who said that since the soul perishes with the body, man can find happiness on earth, providing he liberates himself from his passions

However, an Indian proverb will tell you that the soul is a fortune that cannot be stolen by bandits, that even men in power cannot take from you, that it will stay with you even after your death, never disappearing. Even if this sounds good, it is almost like pulling hairs.

When reading what i just wrote, i realized that I could so much praise the soul, as so many good things have been said about it. I think of Aristotle who said that the soul has the shape of the body. And if the eye was an animal, the soul would be its sight.

Using the same thinking, Wittgenstein said:The human body is the best picture of the human soul. Whereas David Spangler remarked that Our body creates our soul, as much as our soul creates our body. Andi will finish with Avicenna who said that the soul is analogous to the hand. This one is an instrument, think of the palm readers, they read your soul

So, who do I listen to? Who is the one to convince me that the soul has its own merits?

It just seems to me that the soul is a good excuse for whatever happens, good or bad. That people are transcendentally naive to easily believe and follow what the accepted trend is, and we all know how it all started. The first leaders of people were those who strongly recommended to follow the rule and not deviate. However the rule was the one they invented to better dominate their sheep. Sorry but I speak of religions. And I wish not to speak of this subject since everyone knows how delicate it is.